me day," he added.

The lounging man laughed.

"I'll hold you to that, matey," he said; "when you're a-ridin' in yer
carriage an' pair p'raps you'll take me on ter be yer footman."

"When I am, I will," said Dickie, quite seriously. And then they both
laughed.

The "Elephant and Castle" marks but a very short stage of the weary way
between London and Gravesend. When he got out of the tram Dickie asked
the way again, this time of a woman who was selling matches in the
gutter. She pointed with the blue box she held in her hand.

"It's a long way," she said, in a tired voice; "nigh on thirty mile."

"Thank you, missis," said Dickie, and set out, quite simply, to walk
those miles--nearly thirty. The way lay down the Old Kent Road, and
presently Dickie was in familiar surroundings. For the Old Kent Road
leads into the New Cross Road, and that runs right through the yellow
brick wilderness where Dickie's aunt lived. He dared not follow the road
through those well-known scenes. At any moment he might meet his aunt.
And if he met his aunt ... he preferred not to think of it.

Outside the "Marquis of Granby" stood a van, and the horses' heads were
turned away from London. If one could get a lift? Dickie looked
anxiously to right and left, in front and behind. There were wooden
boxes in the van, a lot of them, and on the canvas of the tilt was
painted in fat, white letters--

+----------------+
| FRY'S TONIC |
| |
| THE ONLY CURE |
+----------------+

There would be room on the top of the boxes--they did not reach within
two feet of the tilt.

Should he ask for a lift, when the carter came out of the "Marquis"? Or
should he, if he could, climb up and hide on the boxes and take his
chance of discovery on the lift? He laid a hand on the tail-board.

"Hi, Dickie!" said a voice surprisingly in his ear; "that you?"

Dickie owned that it was, with the feeling of a trapped wild animal, and
turned and faced a boy of his own age, a schoolfellow--the one, in fact,
who had christened him "Dot-and-go-one."

"Oh, what a turn you give me!" he said; "thought you was my aunt. Don't
you let on you seen me."

"Where you been?" asked the boy curiously.

"Oh, all about," Dickie answered vaguely. "Don't you tell me aunt."

"Yer aunt? Don't you know?" The boy was quite contemptuous with him for
not knowing.

"Know? No. Know what?"

"She shot the moon--old Hur